3/25/08- Galen is talking a lot now. The other day I was dressing him, after a diaper change, and he pointed and said in a mock authoritarian type tone “Take my poop out!”. We’ve all been laughing about that one a lot!

3/26/08- Iain and Elijah have been playing Peter Pan, nearly non-stop. They turned Elijah’s bunk (the bottom bunk) into their underground home, complete with a basket hanging from the slats above. Love the attention to detail. They sit and look at the picture in the book and try to recreate it. The basket is held up by a play silk and they have a little bird tucked into it so that it looks like the bird is perched on the handle of the basket. It’s quite “splendid”, as they would say!

Iain is Peter and Elijah is Wendy. Alexander is Micheal, Rain is John, Violet is Tink, their gnomes are lost boys (including Galen’s gnome which they keep swiping).

Elijah takes his role as mother very seriously! He makes sure that all of the “children” are all changed and tidied and tucked up tight every night and then changed and tidied again in the morning. They recently moved the basket closer to his pillow, explaining that this way he could rock the baby at night without having to get up! Iain is a good father and leader and helps with all of the proceedings, with Elijah giving instructions as to what’s “proper”.

3/26/08-Over the weekend all of the boys took home big helium balloons from Max’s birthday party. They have been playing with them a lot. Today while I was dressing Galen to go to the other house, I told Iain and Elijah they could go on ahead of me. A couple of minutes later Elijah came running back in and chocking back sobs he told me that his balloon had burst. He ran into my arms shaking and crying. I can’t remember ever having seen him so upset. I sat there on the floor with him for a very long time, rocking and singing and soothing, while he buried his head and wept. I told that for his birthday he could pick out a whole bunch of balloons and go with Daddy to see them blown up. He liked that idea, but every time he thought about his lost balloon, his lower lip started to quiver and the tears started back up again. Eventually, Iain came in and slipped him a folded up piece of paper with his name on it. When he opened it he found a picture of himself with a big smile on his face, holding his balloon. He told Elijah that he would share his balloon with him. Galen, not one to be left out, brought a picture of his own (a piece of paper with a chunk cut out of it and a scribble in the middle). I was nearly moved to tears by the sweetness of my dear boys.

3/29/08- I took Iain and Elijah to see Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” today. Elijah was completely enraptured, just like at the nutcracker. He was just glowing! Steve took Galen to the grocery store, where he flirted with all of the old ladies (Galen, not Steve).

About this picture: we were going for a walk near our local co-op one evening. Galen had fallen into some mud. When I stood back up after dusting him off, I saw this. My two boys, standing under a “Children at Play” sign, sounding out the words.

Elijah read his first book today! As Wendy, he’s been “reading” bedtime stories to “Micheal” and “John” each night while I read to Galen. Tonight he told me that he was going to learn to really read those little books, because he would be 6 soon and “it’s much easier to read when you get older” (as I was very solemnly told). Then he would read the books to me. He was practicing before bed tonight and got through a whole one (Iain helped with the word “greyhound”). He asked if he could read it to me before his bedtime story. How could I possibly say no?

3/30/08- Galen, ever in love with the song “Hop Up My Ladies”, has been hopping around the house shouting “Hop up wadies a row!” His bottom two-year molars broke through this week.

Iain has started twirling his hair when he’s tired, just like he used to when he was little. I’m not sure what brought it on, but it’s so sweet to see him laying in bed at night, looking just like his baby self.